I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.
In my copious free time, I write for Wired, GQ and elsewhere on the emerging digital culture, from gaming giants to adventurous startups, and provide creative insight for technology companies. In previous lives, I managed corporate communications for a large software company, and was a senior creative at a Hoxton agency. But then again, who wasn't?
I'm also on Twitter and Google Plus. Send tips and/or contacts to danielATdanielnyegriffiths.org

There’s something decidedly intimidating about taking on Julian Gollop at his new game, Chaos Reborn. As the co-creator of 1994’s X-Com: UFO Defense (released as UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe), he is the author of probably the best turn-based strategy game of its generation, and arguably – an argument I believe has significant merit – the best PC game ever made.

It’s a little like sitting down to chessbox with the brain of Garry Kasparov, mounted in the body of ED-209.

I don’t have high hopes.

X-Com is one of the best-known, most praised and most influential games of the PC era: recent years have seen not one but two reboots, one as a turn-based strategy game from Firaxis and the other as a long-delayed 1960s-era action adventure with little in common with the original but its rogues’ gallery. There is nothing quite like the original, though, and its combination of base-building, research and global management of an alien-hunting secret organization with unbelievably tense turn-by-turn, fog-of-war battles through cities, the wrecks of downed alien spaceships and beyond.

Enemy Unknown

20 years later, Gollop, who has been quietly plying his trade across many different games and franchises, from his own Rebelstar to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed, has taken to Kickstarter to continue the development of Chaos Reborn.

Hence the invitation to play the current build of the game, and the suspicion that this is going to be a massacre.

(Our rival wizards stand at apposite edges of a rocky battlefield made up of hexagons, ready to duel.)

X-Com spawned two sequels, and a range of imitators, along with loving fan remake projects like Xenonauts, a faithful update now heading for release after a long development cycle. However, it was not Gollop’s first game. Back in the days of 8-bit computing, Gollop developed for the ZX Spectrum, the dominant British home computer sold less successfully in the US as the Timex Sinclair 2068. Rebelstar Raiders, released in 1984 and recoded in machine code in 1986, began to introduce the principal elements that would define the turn-based combat of X-Com: action points, snap and aimed shots, overwatch fire and so on.

Chaos, released in 1985, was also turn-based, but chose a fantasy setting to present a graphically simple but striking arena battler: up to 8 wizards, player and computer controlled, fought to the death by summoning creatures and trading magic attacks. As the board became choked with elves, ogres and spreading magic fires and gooey blobs, the game certainly lived up to its name.

Rebelstar, along with its successor Laser Squad, is the more celebrated brand, for its impact on the evolution of gaming, and was revived as an online multiplayer game, Laser Squad Nemesis, in 2002, and again in the unexpected confines of the Game Boy Advance in 2005. Gollop acknowledsges that he gets requests for a Laser Squad remake, and that revisiting the setting is certainly in his future plans. So, why is he turning to the relatively little-known Chaos for his Kickstarter?

It’s something that’s been nagging at me for many years. I’ve had so many requests from people who want to do remakes. There’s a little wiki called the Chaos remakes wiki, and it’s got 34 or 35 listed remakes. And there have been hundreds more attempted!

I was talking to a guy from a magazine in Finland, and he told me someone in Finland made a version I’d never heard of. So, it has something enduring about it. It has very simple mechanics, but can be very different each time you play it. It’s great for multiplayer, and it moves very quickly.

It’s a game I have a lot of fondness for as well. I went back to pay the original Chaos a year back, to see what worked, and the core mechanic was still very nice. I like games that have relatively simple and explicit mechnics, but a lot of variety in gameplay and depth to the tactics. I think the original Chaos worked quite well, while not taking hours and hours to play. So, it’s this quick playing, really tactical, highly replayable game – it just seemed attractive to me.

There are still a lot of people who have those memories. It’s like there hasn’t been any game since that has had quite the same experience for people. So I’d say that even though the core game mechanics are really old, they’re still unusual and a bit fresh compared with what’s around these days.

(Gollop’s wizard summons a goblin and sends it after my wizard. I summon a dwarf – a sturdy but slow-moving Lawful creature useful as a bodyguard. Each creature has a percentage chance of being successfully summoned – the more awe-inspiring the creature, the less likely a summoning will be successful. Casting lawful or chaotic spells can shift the balance of the universe, but faced with a 30% chance of summoning a golden dragon, the temptation to cast it as an illusion – always successful, and able to storm the battlefield until it is hit by a disbelieve spell – is great. Not that I have a golden dragon, sadly.)

That was then – a golden dragon ready to clean house in the original Chaos

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.